


Turn of the Hand

by Good_Evening



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: AU, Bottom!Jack, Canonical Character Death, Dracula - Freeform, Gang Rape, Graphic Description of Corpses, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Murder, Pitch you are a master of self-pity, Rape/Non-con References, bottom!Pitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-13 22:56:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Evening/pseuds/Good_Evening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is called to serve as an acting physician in a small Romanian village. He can understand why they avoid his host, but not how anyone could fear him. But he's beginning to see, after weeks of isolation and bad dreams, anyone could go mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fool

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this on my computer is "Brahm Stoker, I Don't Apologize."

He admits to having been a bit optimistic about the letter. When the messenger from Philadelphia had delivered it, he hadn’t considered the idea that it may have been meant for him. Rather, quite impartially, he had left it atop an unassuming pile of books outside of the head doctor’s office, and returned to his duties. The sanitarium was small, but crowded enough to offer a near uninterrupted workflow. When, later that afternoon, he was called back to the administrative wing, he was almost nervous. He was never requested. He had only spoken to Mr. North a few times in his stay. He happily handed the letter to Jack, and told him it had been intended for him.

The first time Jack read through it, he was confused. It was an emergency request for a physician to tend a mountain village. Jack had very little experience with people. Most of those incarcerated were less than engaging—they preferred their own voices to anything Jack could offer. By the time North’s plan clicked in his head, the man was already turned toward his desk and waving him off with a slow, soft movement.

Jack raced through the corridors to his attic room, jumping stairs and swinging past nurses with giddy whoops and hollers. He was going to Europe. He was going to help people. Though he was grateful for the quiet life the Pennsylvanian countryside presented him, thoughts of dragons and castles and mythical maidens trotted through his head until he could hardly think straight. He babbled to his favorite nurses, who ignored him in their duties, that he was to leave the following day. Their disinterest pricked him, but he was used to it.

Two months would be the longest trip he’d ever taken, and he was thrilled for every second of it. The next morning, bags packed, he hopped into the carriage with such glee in his step he hardly touched the ground.

Had he considered the dangers of isolation through his enthusiasm, he may have reconsidered the terms of his contract. The letter vaguely referred to it as “binding” and “uncommon.” Perhaps he had lied about his age upon coming to work in the sanitarium, and he certainly wasn’t of the studious stock, but he was a youthful, bright doctor, with every aim to help the poor people described in the letter. After a childhood packed tightly with fairy tales and few friends, he was enamored of the idea of the knight in shining armor, damn the consequences.

-

The trip took its toll on his body, but his sentiments remain intact. As the carriage jostles along the wood road, he can barely bring himself to care. After a hellish boat ride, being trapped with no company for over a month, he is more than gratified by the sight of mountains and still, winter scenery. Romania, or what he has seen of it, is unremarkable but sturdy, much like his Quaker-rooted home. He had stopped briefly in London before sailing quickly to Cherbourg, and then riding through the corner of France and into a cluster of Dutch states. As he approached the eastern nations, nearing the Black Sea, the landscape shifted into sharp, icy mountains and fat, dark hills. The inns at night grew less and less populated until even the larger towns held only a few travelers that he could see. Finally in Transylvania, only a matter of miles from his destination, his giddiness fires up again, and he hardly spares a glance at the solemn, weary looks townspeople hook into him. He hasn’t a care in the world.

His driver, this time, is the able son of a farmer. Jack had been perplexed at first when no one would offer him the ride to the castle, but after carelessly slinging around the small bag of coins Manny had imparted to him, a young man hushed him and grabbed it, stalking toward his horse with a somber glare. Jack, for the most part, was unaffected by the forward display, and eagerly followed the man to the stables.

The snow is falling softly around them, and Jack is piled in furs in the buggy, well cushioned from the constant jolting bounce of the wheels. Moonlight weak behind the clouds, it struggles to illuminate their bleak surroundings. Jack had bought a gun back in Philadelphia, but has little idea of how to use it. It sits by the young man, loaded and ready. Though he doesn’t speak Romanian, the warning looks the youth keeps passing him are enough to keep his hands from fiddling with the contraption. He has never shot anything more than an arrow, and the pistol is more mystifying than menacing.

The wood is dark where the moon beams can’t reach. Jack finds himself staring blankly into the dreary void, troubled by his inability to distinguish slopes from drop-offs and shadows from trees. As they continue up the road, the chassis protesting loudly, he realizes there is not another sound in the deafening forest. The snow comes to a light flurry and stops, leaving their path obscured enough that the young farmhand must climb out and drag his shins through the snow until he can orient himself on the next ridge. More than once, Jack shivers from the thought of getting lost. He had heard stories in his travel of beasts in the wilderness, and the idea exhilarates him. The gun will protect him—it should be easy enough to use, and the youth driving him carries a torch. He hasn’t met an animal alive that doesn’t fear fire.

As the horse drags them through swells of pristine snow, the night grows colder. A mist creeps in from the black deep of the wood and Jack huddles further under the hides. He passes one to the driver, who takes it gratefully, murmuring what Jack assumes is a chattering thanks. After some hours, the horse stops with a frustrated neigh, hooves beating the ground nervously. A few howls have permeated the night, but all were distant. Another shudders through the gloom, more of a shriek and twice as close as the others, and it perks his ears immediately.

“Why have we stopped?” he asks in a clear voice. It cuts through the silence and the youth turns to him with an uneasy grimace. He spouts a chain of nonsensical words and adds rapid gestures for Jack’s benefit.

“I need to get there by morning, at least. I was supposed to be there this afternoon. I’d think we’d want to go faster.”

Another cry pierces the night, much, much closer, and Jack reaches for the gun. The youth coaxes the horse without allowing much panic into his voice, and she breaks into as quick a gallop as she can in the snow. He never ceases his frantic mumbling, and Jack recognizes a few words, specifically _domini_ , and scoffs at the Latin. Over the crest of the next hill, he spies the stone façade of the castle, and his heart leaps for it.

“We’re almost there,” he trails off, eyes searching the snow for a mistake. A wicked shadow darts along his periphery, just out of reach in the shade of the boughs.

_Oh no. That’s not friendly._

He barely recalls how to use the pistol, an unclear memory of a lesson on automatics flying through his head as he tracks the danger through the darkness, ears rendered useless by the frenzied screeching of the carriage. Sinister figures whip between the trees, too fast and too large to be dogs, and Jack loses focus in shock.

The gate to the castle road is open and the driver speeds them toward it, the forest becoming denser and blacker the closer they get to the walls. As they fly through it, Jack springs into a drift and scrambles to shut the gate, pistol left forgotten in the snow. He struggles with the iron, dragging it slowly through the ice when the youth joins him, yanking the other side back and into place. The dark shapes in the forest dash closer as Jack pulls with all he has, the snow thickening and piling beneath until, still open, the bars refuse to meet.

“Get back!” He shouts, diving into the drift and searching for the pistol. The farmhand runs back to the carriage and jumps into the seat, shouting for Jack to come as he whips the horse into action. Keeping his finger trained on the trigger, Jack stumbles through the snow as the shrieking behind him builds until his ears beg to bleed. He swings an arm up onto the wood of the carriage, and the night falls silent. He opens his eyes against the thick mist of his breath as he surges up onto the floor and the carriage stutters to life, gaining up the hill. He looks behind him, at the half-open gate and the disturbed snow past the black bars. The night is empty beyond his breaths and their carriage, the darkness of the forest impenetrable.

The moonlight breaks free of the low clouds, and the snow is dazzling and bright. And there, from the wood, a black, amorphous figure slinks out into the undisturbed drift in the rut. It climbs lazily, and upon reaching the road, stills. Its form shifts and stirs across the ice, coalescing into a vague, deep void, soundless, and he makes out a leg stepping slowly forward, smoky tendrils lashing sluggishly at the surrounding white. When the black of the rest of the forest slowly lurches its way onto the path, a midnight army, Jack’s stomach drops and the hand holding the gun trembles. The creatures don’t make to move forward as their shapes emerge from the abyss, but Jack doesn’t relax his hold on the pistol, remaining fixed as well as he can in the shivering carriage on the first monster to step forward. It regards him with a similar chill.

When they reach the doors of the castle, the youth leaps from the buckboard and hammers madly on the ancient wood, shouting for help or sanctuary or something as senseless. The place is a necropolis of overturned statues and wicked black stone. Jack continues surveillance of the creatures down below, but they don’t move past the gate, merely watching him from the road. Then, with a casual turn, the first beast trots down the slope and back into the wood, and the remaining black mass follow it, leaving a shadowy trail behind, final tendrils sweeping into the crisp air with effortless grace and evaporating.

The moonlight seems to shine more weakly, hiding again behind the clouds, the night darkening as the sky heaves with a new storm. Jack joins the farmhand in his yelling, and is soon greeted with a monstrous, reverberating creak. They rush inside, shaking as they close the door, forgoing the luggage and horse as they pant in the dim, a few dripping candles nearing the end of their use.

“At least someone’s home,” Jack manages through his stabling breaths. The youth behind him grows quiet as they take in the foyer. With a confident smirk, Jack turns to him, trying to lighten the mood, “I’ve seen women scarier than those things,”

“Then your taste in partners eludes me,” comes a voice from up the stair. The youth’s face drains of color, and he steps back until he hits the door, flattening against it. Jack looks up with a bright smile, squinting through the black air.

“Mr. Black, I presume?” Jack asks with a smile in his voice, eager to leave the fear behind them. A man descends from the stair, hand gliding along the banister, a sinister caricature of humanity.

“And you will be the young doctor I’ve sent for. Please: ‘Pitch’ will suffice.” He looms over them, even the tough young driver, whom he regards with a careful smile, “I see the wood was not so kind to you. You must be chilled.” He turns past them and Jack follows, stripping off his wet cloak and draping it heavily over his arm. “Come by the fire. Your driver may leave whenever he feels ready.”

Jack grins warmly back at the youth, who looks nearly nauseous from fear, and motions for him to catch up, but the man shakes his head and pulls at the door again, a thickening flurry awaiting him as he pries the wood under frozen fingers. Jack frowns at his continued horror, and makes to stop him, but the man slides through the opening as soon as his body can fit, and it snaps closed behind him with a damning crack. Unsure of the wisest course of action, Jack walks to the door, attempting to yank it open, but it refuses to budge beneath his grip.

“Don’t worry about him. The second I heard the commotion, I sent some men out to drive off the beasts. The wolves in these parts are especially bold.”

Wolves? That couldn’t have been it.

“You thought to bring a gun. It’s rather small, don’t you think?” Pitch comments idly as Jack struggles with himself to not rush out into the blizzard.

“I’m not interested in weapons.”

“They haven’t served you well, yet. But you really must come in. You’ll catch cold, standing there all wet.”

Jack follows him numbly, clearly unhappy about leaving the man to the wilderness, regardless of Pitch’s assurance that his “men” would take care of any ghouls. He sits on invitation in a large, soft chair by the fire, cringing from the heat biting at his chilled skin. Opening his mouth to ask to leave and find the man, maybe keep him for the night, a warm cup is pressed into his hands, and he realizes he is still holding the pistol.

“I’ll take that for you,” Pitch says lightly. He plucks the gun carefully from Jack’s grasp and sweeps it elegantly out of sight. Jack looks down into the murky liquid handed him. It smells rich and spiced. He tastes it and groans contentedly, curling around it.

“I really think we should go look for him. He was terrified.”

“By now, he’s likely getting acquainted with one of the riders. There are patrolmen out on the road, at this time. I’m rather surprised you never encountered them.” Pitch’s voice is calm and matter-of-fact. He is confident in his knowledge, regardless of Jack’s hinting that _there are monsters out there, you didn’t see them, how can you know he’s safe, we should find him_. Rather, he settles soundlessly into the chair nearest Jack’s and nonchalantly crosses his legs, gazing thoughtfully into the fire.

The sheer domesticity of the scene knocks Jack into memories he’d prefer lie quiet in the heightened emotion, so he clears his throat and focuses instead on the steaming wine in his cup.

“It’s awfully odd to be so far from the towns, isn’t it? Everywhere else I’ve seen, the village is clustered right up by the wall.”

Pitch considers this with a casual smile, leaning from his arm back into the chair.

“Frost, it is quite late for stories,”

“You probably want to go to bed. If you give me directions, I could probably find my room, so you could sleep sooner.”

Pitch rises and collects the cloak Jack left nearby, and Jack forces himself from his comfortable perch, still clutching the wine covetously.

“I’ll lead you to your room. You needn’t worry about my sleeping habits. I’m a bit of a night owl.”

Jack trails after him, still holding the cup, warmth trickling back through his limbs and making him heavy, lethargic. The remainder of the castle seems to be just above freezing, and his host likely extinguished all the candles for the late hour. Jack, hardly able to see through the solid gloom, keeps closer than perhaps is necessary, though Pitch doesn’t comment.

The climb to his room is silent and taxing. By the time they stop outside of the first open door he’s seen, Jack’s wine has disappeared and the last of the warmth from the fire has seeped out of him. He steps into a cold, dark room. The windows are frosted over with a thick layer of ice, so that the forest below is blurred into a nebulous black background. Given what he knows of its contents, he’s almost relieved. Pitch walks past him and pulls a small box of matches from his pocket,

“The lamps have not been refreshed for some time, now. I’ll bring you oil, tomorrow.”

Exhausted and eyeing the bed hungrily after over a month on the road, Jack lets his questions about housekeepers die. His jacket drops across an arm of one of the chairs, and he sits on the heavy quilt. It gives generously under him, and he resists the urge to fall back, instead turning to his host with a tired, grateful grin,

“Thanks for all this. Sorry to keep you up late,” he stumbles half-heartedly over formalities he’s learned on his travels. Pitch seems to recognize his front and smiles indulgently,

“Not at all. I have duties, tomorrow, but I will see you for dinner. If you have any requests, my housekeeper will oblige.”

He does have servants, Jack thinks vaguely as he parrots back a quiet _goodnight_ over his yawn. Pitch’s smile follows him out the door.

The room is not as oppressively dark as the halls, but the candle still sputters weakly against the shadows, and the flickering shapes on the walls remind him of his encounter with the beasts. Rubbing his eyes to clear the thought, he begins undressing, shucking off his clothing lazily, not bothering to fold as he slides under crisp sheets. He pinches the candle and the gloom that overtakes the room is almost tangible. Glowing blue and crystalline, the windows only feed into the phenomenon, until the black absence between their mild streaks becomes almost murky, liquid. Jack is not particularly fond of feeling closed in, but the spacious bed, and the cool sheets, and the reminder of the moon just outside the window all help to allay his superstitions. With a tired flop against the pillows, Jack slips under in a matter of minutes.


	2. The Magician

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack starts having nightmares. Pitch lays claim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How the makers of the movie avoided the massive amounts of sexual tension palpable between these two characters is a bewildering crime.

An agonized scream cracks through his head like lightning and he’s on his elbows dripping cool sweat. It takes several seconds to realize he is awake and safe. The sheets are twisted around his legs like a cocoon, the quilts thrown off in his sleep. He quivers like a man in a firing line, arms slowly coming around to touch his clammy flesh, dragging through rivulets of sweat to reorganize the border between dream and body. He hunches over his lap with low, sobbing breaths, attempting to stabilize himself before someone comes to check up on him.

His hands and wrists have ragged pink lines running all over them, as if he’d been scratching himself throughout the night. Drawing in choking gasps of air, his lungs burn and cry out for more. His heart is pounding but leaden with dread, sunken into his belly as he sifts through his memories and finds only pangs of terror. He cannot remember the nightmare, but his face is burning with tears, and he hiccups into his palm miserably, eyes screwed shut as his breath stutters on a sob, shaking his thin back. He hides his face in shame. His body rocks and burns for the first minute before he shivers from the cold and pulls the sheets up to hide himself. After a little while, his breathing returns to normal, and he lies down on his side, face behind his knees as the last of the nightmare leaves him.

-

He’s pale and slow to dress when a polite rap rattles the door.

“Just a moment,” he replies, voice rougher than usual.

He opens the door, vest still in hand, to see a tray and a neat, square bundle on the table to the left. He stares down the long corridor, peering into the darkness at each end to catch where the fabled housekeeper had gone.

“Not the friendliest staff, huh?”

He tucks a finger under the string holding the bundle and grasps the tray with both hands, when he notices a pair of sheepskin slippers under the table. He slides his foot into one and melts at the warmth, entering the room with a giddy skip and leaving the door open to watch for the ghostly servants.

As he lifts the lid on the tray, he immediately assumes it’s a belated welcoming meal. Three kinds of bread with a cup of butter, a plate of fried eggs, liberal amounts of sliced ham and cheese, with a bowl of a fragrant, dark fruit, a dish of polenta, and a tall crystal glass steaming with something thick and creamy. His stomach roars and the panic is forgotten. He rips into the breakfast with an animosity he hasn’t shown since childhood. The polenta is extremely rich, and he savors it covetously, bringing the plate under his nose to inhale the warm scent. The fruit, he can’t quite place; the berries are too small and the seeds too large to be anything familiar, but they taste heavenly, and after he’s eaten everything, he collapses into the arm chair with a satisfied sigh, and refuses to leave before his belly can catch up with the feast.

The bundle lingers in his periphery, and he reaches for it beside the tray, tugging at the string with renewed eagerness. The blue fabric wrapping drapes across his lap, a short woolen cloak. Nestled inside are a change of clothes, a worn book with loose leaves, and a box of writing utensils. He settles back into his chair, removing the clothes to the table and opening the clasp on the book. While he can’t read most of what is inside, the loose pages are English, and much more recent than the browned parchment of the tome. They might have been written last night.

The pages contain a census of all of the families in town, along with the names of their houses, and any recent signs of illness or injury. He pores over the documents and opens the writing box to make notes of the supplies he’ll need. It isn’t until the light outside begins to dwindle, and the windows darken that he realizes how late he’d slept. Setting the book aside, he stands and picks up the new clothes. He feels rather spoiled, but figures he’ll be put to work soon enough.

The trousers are heavy and worn, doeskin, with an embroidered belt. A smart leather vest is tucked around a long shirt with broad sleeves, the collar and front stitched with a delicate blue border. While no one in the village had been wearing anything not suited to field or market work, he had seen some travelers wearing similar clothes.

He closes the door and lights the candle, removing his clothes and letting them pool on the floor. A light knock makes him jump as he reaches for the chemise,

“One minute!” He calls out, then mutters to himself, “They’ve got a sixth sense for bad timing.”

He pulls on the new clothes as quickly as he can, and is about to reach for the vest when the knocking comes again,

“Alright, alright,” he says under his breath, jerking toward the door and pulling it open. He jolts when he actually sees someone.

Pitch stares down at him before his eyes dart to the rumpled clothes; the untied collar and sleeves. His slow smirk irritates Jack, who forces himself into rare civility. Pitch enters without speaking and looks around at the cozy clutter Jack’s accumulated, namely the clothes streaked across the floor. He breezes past the book and notes, toward the bed, and pulls a tin of oil from his pocket. Jack perks up as he sets it on the table.

“Thanks! It got dark so early, and I slept in. I was afraid the candle might die on me before anyone came.” He chatters as Pitch glances at the dissembled bed; the quilts tossed on the floor.

“Restless dreams?” he asks, kneeling to retrieve the blankets. Jack freezes. His heart stutters under an anxious gulp.

“You could say that.” His voice is more subdued, but scratchier. The memories run his throat dry. He watches as Pitch folds the blanket, awed by how far the man’s arms reach. He lays it on the bed, next to the rumpled sheets, gaze lingering for a few moments before he addresses Jack again,

“If you were worried about your driver, the patrolman informed me this morning that he passed safely through the woods.” He stops at Jack’s relieved sigh, collecting himself, “Unfortunately, he seems to have absconded with your belongings.” Jack’s enthusiasm dies a little, though his eyes still spark with hope,

“Is there any chance I could borrow a horse? I brought some medicine with me, and my notes are in there,” he trails off at Pitch’s unchanging expression. The man had seemed bored at first, but intrigue flashes in his eyes. He smiles lightly,

“I’m afraid that my riders did try to track him into town, but could not find him or his cart. They predicted he’s gone to sell whatever you brought.”

Jack looks down, almost stricken. He doesn’t have the money to replace his clothes or tools. The sound of fabric dragging doesn’t break him from his reverie until Pitch is nearly too close, carrying the vest and belt that Jack had forgone. He holds up the vest like a mother helping a child to dress, and Jack looks at him incredulously before taking it and yanking it on alone. Pitch doesn’t react, only offering the belt, too, which is of some ungodly design because Jack can’t figure out where the tails go or how to tie something behind his back.

“If you need any help,” Pitch repeats himself from the day before, amusement clear in his voice, and suddenly Jack’s irked again by the challenge,

“Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind,” he says, barely keeping the snort out of his tone. When Pitch takes him up on it, he goes frigid, doggedly avoiding contact while thin hands overtake his messy work. They knot the fabric expertly, quickly, knuckles brushing against Jack’s lower back and making him arch away. As he does, the belt shrinks instantly around him, yanked fast and tied before he can move. He sucks in a breath and Pitch, bent partly over his shoulder, asks,

“Too tight?”

Jack stumbles mentally over his own rage before turning around and stepping back, hands going up to undo the restrictive ties. Pitch watches him struggle with no attempt at remorse before offering a simple apology, and to retie the sash. Still seething, Jack permits himself another few seconds to tug at the knots, but they don’t budge, and the scratches from the night before flare up on his white skin.

With a hard grimace, his turns his back to the man and flinches when the bony fingers resume their work.

As the fabric begins to loosen, and his breath tumbles out of him, the shirt falling slightly where it had bunched under the belt, he begins to realize that while having someone help put something on is embarrassing, having them remove anything is downright humiliating. Again, the knuckles brush against his back, this time more insistently as the knots are pulled and slackened. Then, as the belt nearly falls, it’s drawn suddenly and tightly against him. Not as taut as before, but it makes his back instantly rigid and Pitch leans down, still some distance from his ear, teasing,

“ _Better?_ ”

“ **Pitch** ,” he begins, but as his hands move back to slap away the other’s, one is gently snatched up.

“Whatever did you do to your hands?” the man wonders. Jack spins awkwardly, backing away a comfortable step before answering. Pitch’s displeased stare contrasts so much of what Jack has seen, his response comes more subdued than he had intended.

“I was thrashing, last night,”

“Thrashing?” Pitch’s eyebrows are raised; ears perked. He offers a hand, asking silently to look at the myriad scratches and scars. Jack begrudgingly obliges.

“I think I had a nightmare.”

“You think,” he repeats, turning the pale wrist and sniffing at a particularly large scab, where a thumb had scraped a short, ragged gash. “I’ll need to get your supplies as quickly as possible. Perhaps you can try a sleeping medication, to keep from ‘thrashing.’” Jack removes his hand from Pitch’s inspection and brushes it thoughtlessly on his thigh. The man glances up at his face before turning toward the door,

“I came to invite you to dinner, but it seems you were working. Would you like your meal brought to you?”

The papers on the table don’t need his attention, but he’s not sure he’s willing to play nice in whatever depressing atmosphere the rest of the castle has to offer.

“If it’s all the same to you, I would like to keep working.”

Pitch glides over to the door and says in a breezy tone,

“Don’t stay up too late. We can’t have you sleeping in so often.”

Jack bristles and wants to fire back like they’re on the playground, but lets Pitch leave without another word, though he slams the door harder than necessary. The resounding _thunk_ helps to clear his head.

-

Waking after a nap is much calmer. The soft glow of the windows, and the snuffed candle tell him he’s been out for a while. A tight chill in his chest turns the shadows unnerving and sharp. He leaves the chair for the bed, and sees the sheets have been remade, the quilt laid folded at the bottom. His hands ache from the scratches as he palms the fabric. Had Pitch come by again, only to find him asleep? Perhaps his meal is outside. He can’t remember when he’d fallen asleep, but the moon wavers low on the horizon, falling quickly beneath the crest of the hill. He grabs the bedside lamp and fills it with oil, searching for a match and finding none.

“First my suitcase, and now the matches,” he mutters, stewing in his misery. His stomach growls; he hasn’t eaten since the afternoon, and he approaches the hall.

To his dismay, the table is untouched from when he’d last checked it. The corridor is a wall of black before him, the last tendrils of moonlit frost at the windows fading into starlight. Heavy drapes have been drawn along the glass in the hall. If he can pull them, he might have enough light to navigate, but finding the tassels is a different matter.

Reaching blindly for the opposite wall, the curtains shudder as he pats them. No tassel. He pulls the fabric right and left, straining from their height,

“C’mon, you ratty little washcloth,”

Short beams of starlight greet him, the moon having set during his struggle. No matter what he tries, the drapes can’t tie off, so they fall back, and he leaves, more aggravated than before. He makes slow progress toward the entrance hall. He doesn’t know precisely where he’s going, but he knows there to be matches in the parlor by the stair. If he can reach that, he can explore a little more preparedly.

He used to tell stories to the kids in town of ghosts and demons plaguing austere gothic castles, of kidnapped princesses and beasts in the woods. Fancying himself something of a hero, just to keep going, a story formulates before he can stop himself.

“And the handsome, amazing knight, Jackson Overland, came to horns with the evil King Pitch, who had these creepy servants who refused to appear even at their master’s dying wish, and Jackson smote him but saved his chef, whom he then stole away and married, because she was beautiful and chaste and probably a princess, anyway.” His narrative makes him smile, and he finds his way to the stair with little trouble.

The foyer is lit with a vague, warped smolder emanating from the parlor. Could Pitch be awake? He had been gone all day, tending his weird backcountry business. He hadn’t bothered to grace Jack with his oh-so unwanted presence until near midnight. What could a country count, the likes of him, be up to that so demanded his time? Fraternizing with the sheep, maybe. Jack laughs openly at the thought. Pitch might not entirely deserve it, but he’s done little to earn much praise. The clothes were a nice affect, but he’s sure the breakfast was more the idea of the gorgeous and virtuous daydream chef, and that a man who enjoys the company of young doctors for dinner more than a wife may be a little odd. An unfair idea, maybe, but Jack’s always been one to favor entertainment over utility.

Whether or not he gives Pitch a second chance on hospitality, he presumes he’ll be greeted with the same treatment at every turn: neglect until nightfall, and then an uncomfortable and private dose of teasing. Jack’s hardly been touched in his life. Having someone so off-putting so close is not his idea of a fun night in.

When he enters the parlor, he’s ready to engage in some more awkward banter, but there’s not a soul to be found. He enters guardedly, taking in surroundings he’d ignored, the day before. The room is the same stone as the rest of the place, but he realizes now that it’s quite light. The rug that had rested before the fire when he’d last come is missing, and the white of the bricks is played upon by dancing shadows. He pulls the largest chair over near the fire and curls into it, snuggling into a knitted throw. The room isn’t homey by any standards, but it isn’t barren, like the rest of the place. His room is Spartan, compared his previous standard of living, though the fault of that is the thief he unwittingly trusted.

He frowns deeply, not liking that train of thought. The youth had been so honest with him, even protecting him when he’d started waving his money around like a damned fool, asking _hey, I need an escort into this dark and dreary wood. My screams couldn’t be heard for miles, and also I’m carrying a good deal of merchandise. Any takers?_ Jack doesn’t like to think of himself as naïve, but he hadn’t exactly been getting any offers without advertising.

And that’s another thing: no one wanted to come near this place. He’d had to practically beg the youth before earning a pitying glance. The idea that such a helpful person would up and steal, especially after they’d defended their lives together against… whatever is lurking out there, doesn’t sit well with him. He’s prepared to call Pitch out on that, but he’s sure he’ll be dodged all the same. This whole situation stinks something foul and just his second night in, he’s refusing to play along. At the moment, his thoughts are straining along the train that if there’s a fire, there are people, and if there’s anyone in this place, it’s Pitch. Unfortunately, the man seems to have tucked in for the night. Jack glares with a dazed look on his face into the dying embers, letting the light wash over him in the midst of this pit.

Light.

Matches.

Oh, _right_.

He rises from the chair, bringing the blanket with him across the room. His pistol is gone from where he’d supposed Pitch had left it. It unnerves him greatly that his own weapon is being kept from him. The more he sees of this place, the less he likes it. He shuffles around the room, but his search is short for the fact that every second drawer is locked, and the dusty cabinet sitting in the corner doesn’t appear to have an opening latch to begin with. He’s already fed up, so when his fingers struggle for purchase against the mildewed mahogany, he finally lets out his frustration on the wooden base, and immediately regrets it with a pained shout.

“Now what could the furniture have done to inspire such passion in you?”

Jack’s ears perk up and his vexation dies some, regardless of the sarcasm.

“Pitch! I need to talk to you,” The entryway is empty. He stares into the darkness for longer than necessary, body still active with knowledge of another. Pitch is in the room, or was.

“Pitch?” he calls out uncertainly, being fine with fun and games, but least of all when a man’s life still hangs in question, quite literally.

“Pitch, I haven’t even signed my contract yet, and this whole thing is looking pretty strange.”

“Dear me, I forgot.” Jack jumps at the wave of warmth cast over his back. Pitch steps aside and brushes him lightly in passing, leaving a shiver in his wake as he circles one of the chairs, “You must still be wondering why you’re really here.”

“I’m here to help people. I wouldn’t have come just to keep you company.”

“I’m hurt.” Pitch smiles casually and his arm sweeps over one of the tables, gathering up a sheath of paper. “You’re still worried about the driver. I’ve told you, he’s left the town. You can speak with the patrolman, himself, if you don’t believe me.”

His attitude is grating. Jack steels himself and attempts to cool down. Pitch plucks several papers from the stack and lays them neatly on the sideboard near Jack, sliding a box of matches up near them, along with a pen and ink.

“The housekeeper came by while you were dozing and lit another candle for you. These were taken, by mistake.” Jack ogles the matches greedily, tired of tripping through this place on guesses. “This is your contract,” he explains with a sweeping hand. Jack’s eyes follow it to the papers, written in Romanian and English, the latter sparingly. “It’s as discussed in the letter, though you are free to read it to your heart’s content.”

Jack snatches it up and combs over it, struggling through the bogs of Cyrillic and short, bare patches of friendly English.

“This isn’t all of it. I don’t speak Romanian.”

“Don’t you?” Pitch seems surprised, and Jack wants to credit him for such a convincing performance. He grits his teeth and plays calm,

“What does the rest of it say?”

How Pitch manages to snag the paper from him, he can’t quite tell. One second he feels it, and the next Pitch is holding it up to the light, pointing out sections and reading in a blasé tone.

“It requires that you spend at least six months serving the village and surrounding farms, as well as acting as my own physician and medical advisor. Your board, meals, and any necessary items shall be paid for in full, provided that you fulfill the contract.” He pauses thoughtfully, and tosses Jack an arrogant smile, “It’s recommended that you remain on the grounds unless you’ve got an escort. The forest is not so friendly.”

Jack grabs at the paper and Pitch surrenders it indifferently, then walks over to the fire, his shadow long and flickering on the wall. He reads through several more times, piecing together Pitch’s speech through the sparse English before setting the whole thing down and eyeing the other papers.

“And what are these?”

Pitch glances over his shoulder, the fire casting his face at inhuman angles,

“One of them was signed by your head doctor. He understands your position and will cover any liabilities.”

Jack hates himself for taking the pen in hand. Pitch only watches, looking slightly bored,

“And the other?” he asks, already signing. The ink bleeds into fractals on the paper and he signs as quickly as he can. When he reaches to replace the pen, Pitch is at his back, again, staring intently over his shoulder at his signature.

“A letter from him about your well-being. I’ve already assured him of your safety.” Pitch reclaims the papers before Jack can get a good look at all of them, stuffing them into his robe.

“Now,” he says, usual malice delighting in Jack’s nervous stature, “let’s get you situated.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll make my own Faustian bargain, with BlackIce and hookers! In fact, forget the hookers!
> 
> But we don't know why it's Faustian, yet.
> 
> Or if it is, at all.
> 
> Oh, hello, 3 a.m. Fancy seeing you, here.


	3. The Lure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While they're both fond of teasing, they're not very gracious about getting back what they give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This generated more hype than I was expecting. Good. Good... let the slash flow through you...

Jack’s fingers still prickle with heat where hips had lain against his. He gulps and covers his face with a bandaged hand, the blankets tugging against his bare erection. The touch of skin on his forehead reminds him of how he’d burrowed into a lean neck, leaving playful bites on a flushed collarbone. He hasn’t had such a dream for the duration of the trip, but this one beats any in memory. He’d passed hours basking in the warmth of another body. As he slips closer and closer to full consciousness, the details grow fuzzy, but one thing leaves a lingering pang in his chest: he’d never wanted something so much, or felt so happy to get it.

Unsure of how to hide the evidence, he tries to calm himself, lifting the sheets to reduce contact even as he hisses and arches to rub back against them. What a mess. It’s barely dawn outside, but there’s enough light that the room emerges. Perhaps if he could find a balcony, and stay in the wind and snow for just a few minutes…

The voice in the back of his mind that would usually convince him suddenly begs, shrieks at him to relieve the pressure, to capture the last of the memories departing before his desire fades. It drives a good argument, and Jack hasn’t had any good fun in _ages_.

The final few pictures slipping through his grasp are thin, but as his hand travels down his stomach, his navel, they rekindle, and he grips them with enough force to yank them into fantasy. His body shudders gratefully.

His normal fantasies are bland in comparison. Where he’d plastered the faces of town girls and assumptions taken from a soft back through a summer blouse, vivid, powerful images shoot through him and he hums tremulously, wrapping cool fingers around his straining penis. A wall; a bed; someone panting in his ear, laughing, teasing, breaths coming out choked and followed by sharp sighs. He strokes in earnest through visions of stumbling up the stairs after a trail of clothes, shedding his own in pursuit, shoving a sweltering body against the wall or being pulled toward the bed.

“ _Ah,_ ” he moans quietly, keeping mostly to low breaths, but the dream is so brilliant in his head, now, so real that his hand pales in comparison to the sheer heat he’d _once known_.

And the things he’d heard, mostly his name; being called as if he’s _someone._ As if he were the moon and stars. He remembers rutting against the thigh between his legs, being asked for something and kissed and stroked, all pleading gestures laced with bites to a stuttering jaw and quiet, breathy chuckles. And then it’s so real, he could open his eyes if he dared and _see_ it. The mouth by his ear begging for it and finally, _finally_ , after _weeks_ of waiting, his own teasing voice warm with mirth as he says yes, yes, _yes,_

He’d meant to direct the ejaculate, but he’s never been quite good with restraint.

The afterglow brings parts of the dream he couldn’t see clearly before; feelings of comfort and possession; safety. He’s never felt that way toward anyone, but just this dream leaves him with pep and a smile so sickeningly joyful, he almost disgusts himself. He’s no sap, but if that’s what love is like, he might have to find himself a nice young gypsy girl for the duration of his stay.

He wipes the evidence on his bedside handkerchief, collecting as much as he can before swinging his jellied legs over the side of the bed to wash up with the pitcher. Pitch had been thoughtful enough to stock his room more adequately, as well as order supplies from the city. Some instruments, he’d thought would come from as far away as Germany, but Pitch left them at his doorstep without comment, the day after he’d given him the last. The medicines, too, are already arriving. Jack could get to work much more quickly than he’d thought.

But the dream.

A content smile is engraved upon his face and lasts even when he hears a knock on the door. Pulling on a dressing gown and throwing the handkerchief under the bed, he marches toward the door with more confidence than he’d felt in a good long while. Imagine the blow to his happiness when he finds Pitch on the other side.

“Ah, good morning,” he begins unsurely. Pitch looks like he’d been planning on saying something very witty and irritating, but it’s quite clearly failed him. He’s much more interested in Jack’s disheveled appearance and still-ruddy cheeks, though his expression is haughty and unyielding as usual. Jack takes it in stride, more empowered by the changing screen delivered to his room two days before.

“Would you like to come in?” because standing in a doorway wearing nothing under a robe practically falling off of him is all good fun, but Pitch, as always, makes him more than uneasy. Seeming to take the hint, Pitch fights with himself for a second, glancing down the corridor before turning back to Jack and staring past him carefully. He glides in with a choking wave of arrogance, almost forced.

“Why are you out so early?” Not enough skulking to do?

Pitch’s gaze burns holes in his bed sheets, which he’d forgotten to crumple up and might possibly be harboring evidence. He traipses over with graceful ease and falls back on the mattress, crossing his legs and hiding the sheets behind him with a challenging smile. The robe hangs long past his hands and drapes heavily over his shoulders. Pitch doesn’t move.

“Silent treatment? I understand. Up too late reading Poe? Maybe some Goethe? Old man like you; you’re probably tired.” Jack hasn’t had the chance to mutually joke around with anyone, really, since he was much smaller. He leans back on locked arms, the robe dipping so low on his chest, it almost pools in his lap. “Wanna take a nap?”

The look on Pitch’s face, Jack thinks, is what court ladies would call _scandalous_. He’s been entertaining the idea for the past few days that Pitch is a lonely bastard by his own doing, and it’s Jack’s own divine duty to tease him as mercilessly as he is able, until the man finally explodes. After which he will progress to outright pranking him, because even if he’s technically getting paid to be here, it doesn’t sit right with him to not be interacting with, let alone _seeing_ people.

 Through whatever force of will, Pitch composes himself and regards Jack, as well as the rather obvious clump of shame he’s currently trying to hide, with such a reticent air that something in the boy plummets, and his smiles weakens.

“I was going to ask if you would like to accompany me to town, this week, but you seem preoccupied.” The mention of getting out of this place, even just for a few hours, perks Jack so intensely and suddenly, that he jolts on the bed, eyes and mouth wide in wonder.

“You’re serious?”

The pass had been closed for the past few days, but an avalanche had cleared the worst of the snow from the slope. Perhaps the road is being shoveled out. Pitch can’t contain all of his delight with Jack’s honesty. A smile bleeds through even as his eyes continue to wander, avoiding his companion while glancing back every now and then at his ruffled, careless appearance.

“You should have another set of clothes, and an apron, for work. As well as a sleeping draught. The blood you got on my sheets with that nightmare was unacceptable.”

Jack’s mood takes a nosedive and his shoulders hunch by the slightest degree, allowing the black fabric to slide, revealing yet more of his flesh. Pitch can’t help but take notice, staring for uncomfortably long before having to walk toward a chair on the other side of the room. He pinches the shirt Jack had thrown off the night before.

“You could stand to have something nice, too. It might motivate you to actually join me for dinner,”

“Did you come here just to ask me on a date? And not a chaperone in sight. I’m flattered.”

“I have the best intentions.” Pitch’s smile courses through him like a shockwave. That’s the first truly playful expression he’s seen. Nothing wholly malicious creeping behind those razor teeth. Jack’s happy to have someone play along, for once in his life. Pitch continues with an abnormally happy tone,

“I was actually going to invite you to breakfast, but you seem to have your morning all planned out.” He drops the shirt, hands clasping as he moves closer, looking positively _starved_. When he’s nearly between Jack’s spread legs, he grabs the edge of the robe and studies it, then lightly pulls it away so that Jack’s chest is partially exposed. “If you’re going to wear my hand-me-downs, I’d appreciate it if you’d at least _clean up after_.” Jack’s cool exterior cracks and Pitch’s smirk is his last comment as he exits the room. A glance down reveals the smallest trace of ejaculate, higher on his belly than he’d wiped. How he hadn’t felt it, he’ll never know. For the meantime, his embarrassment is his whole existence, and the morning’s pleasant dream leaves him in full.

-

While exploring is its own entertainment, Jack soon discovers that the castle is nearly empty. What rooms he can enter are usually mostly barren, with faint traces of life dwindling in the corners: a worn rug, a dark, scratched pew. The castle faces a courtyard, which Jack still has not managed to infiltrate, though he hasn’t had the nerve yet to give up and ask Pitch for a map. Cabin fever has him by the chain, and regardless of the books Pitch brings him, and the promises of medicine, he cannot keep himself occupied. As he’s wandering, that afternoon, failing to scrub the flush from his cheeks at every reminder of the morning, he catches a dark flicker in his periphery.

“Hello, there,” he says mostly to himself, spying through a half-opened door. He pushes it in with a loud creak. The room is of the same whitish stone as the rest of the place, and a cold breeze rushes to greet him, pushing at the door beside him. Eddies pull at his hair and he smiles playfully,

“Pitch? Is that you?”

This room is as stark as the rest of them, though much smaller. He approaches the window, stepping into the light and looking out over the walled garden. A destroyed arch, the rock crumbled and sporting black lichen, stands separating the earthen path from the brick patio. A wicked black hook hangs from the center, much larger than any useful things he can think of. The wind blows again, running snow against the window diagonally, and Jack reaches to close it, tilting outside to grip the clasp. As he pulls it closed, he sees the shadow to his right. The light doesn’t reach the corner, and he inspects it with disappointment already looming in him. His hand fumbles over a metal handle, and he tests the entrance with a firm shove. It shudders open, so he presses harder, wood dragging loudly on the ground. The door is off-kilter.

He sidles through and brushes his clothes back into place. A curving stair meets him, small, ancient windows illuminating pale strips. He mutters lamely into the stairwell,

“Does every castle have a mysterious tower?”

“Does every damsel have a death wish?”

He nearly jumps up and runs for his life. Pitch’s appearance is, as usual, unannounced and unwelcome.

“While your enthusiasm for my home is inspiring, I will ask that you leave my bedroom undiscovered.”

“Your bedroom,” Jack responds intelligently, glaring distrustfully at the bare passage. Pitch ghosts by him, leaving the same bitter feeling as before when their arms brush.

“I haven’t had to lock it in years, but perhaps it’s best to get back in the habit.”

Jack scoffs,

“I don’t think I’ll be visiting anytime soon.”

He doesn’t receive the witty retort he’s used to ignoring. Pitch merely lifts a brow, apparently on his second universal setting of vaguely annoyed and wickedly cold. Rather than telling Jack to move, he simply _grows_ in the entrance, pushing forth until their chests are nearly touching and Jack is ready to call out this alpha dog bull for what it really is, but again, Pitch beats him to the punch.

“Then perhaps you should stop lingering in my doorway as if expecting _payment_.” The malevolent smile he grants is too close and too tall; Jack’s bending to look up and almost mesmerized by how much he wants to slug him, when the lightest touch of fingers turns his chin to the side. Pitch’s eyelids lower, irises flickering mischievously,

“Unless you’re _overqualified_ for your contract, of course.”

Jack smacks him off with a snarl, stepping back as his hand catches in a sleeve of the soft robe. He jerks away and almost hits him, but Pitch just tilts his head down with a calm smile,

“I expect you for dinner, _dearest_.”

The door slams in his face and Jack reels back from the wind it shucks off. His face almost stings from the wave of rejection passing over him; from the itch of an unfinished fight. He kicks at the door with an infuriated grunt, then stalks out to find his room. Pitch has been bothering him since the day they met. He’ll get back at him. He might not care for weapons, but he has no opposition to war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was not happy with the flow of this chapter. But what's missing comes in the next, so... that's good?


	4. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems that Jack can't hold his liquor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Someone will be happy, at least.

It’s the first meal he’ll be taking with company in several months, but Jack can’t help but feel dour about the whole thing. At the sanitarium, he’d eaten alone, worked alone, and for the most part, lived alone. After a little under a year, he’d been kicked out of the dormitories for bad behavior, and North had been less than amenable to his pleas. He should have been used to being alone, but he had never quite settled into his solitude.

And now, after so long alone, he has someone willing to level with him; someone who’s not simply using him; someone who’s just as cooped up, socially backward, and sarcastic as he is. But Pitch _grates_ on his nerves. He pushes buttons expertly and relentlessly. Jack’s thrilled to have contact of any non-professional kind, as long as his existence is simply acknowledged. Suffering Pitch’s company may be slowly killing him, but it’s better than allowing loneliness the same honor.

As he dresses for dinner, donning his worn traveling clothes in an act of defiance, he wonders if he should bring a light with him. After the last incident with the matches, Pitch seemed to have made at least a cursory effort in keeping the main hall lit. But after glancing down the corridor and seeing shadows flicker across the floor, Jack wonders if it’s any improvement, now that he can _see_ the monsters he’s been dreaming of. The past few days spent stumbling through the bleak castle have left him with a sort of ignorant pride, facing the unknown. He could brave what he couldn’t define. Now that each horror glimmers in the corner of his vision, he wonders if he was better off in the dark.

Forseeing some unspeakable aberration, such as the lights burning out before he can return, he packs the matches in his pocket, along with a short candle and holder. He turns down the key to the lamp and heads toward the dining room, or at least where Pitch said it was.

The moment he steps into the hall, an unnatural breeze ghosts by his ear. He shuts the door and faces the cold, stale air, the candles on the walls sputtering as usual. His feet are bare against the freezing stone, and he plasters on an arrogant smile as he thinks of the demons lurking in the black.

“And we come to meet our hero, the dashing and brilliant Jackson who, braving all perils, cuts through the darkness like a shining scimitar, his handsome face enough to make any girl faint. With every step, he conquers new territory, forcing the mysterious beasts of the void before him into a trap! With the matches in his pocket, he will corner and slay them!”

A creak echoes and he jumps, the triumph in his voice faltering,

“Jackson’s beautiful and virtuous lady friend cries to him, _‘There’s too many! We’re outnumbered!’_ But he knows better.”

He strikes a match and lights his candle, shoving it into the holder. It’s more effective than the sparks shuddering above his head. The wind plays with the curtains and his eyes adjust to the new light.

“The greatest of the beasts lingers behind the drapes: a shapeshifter who flies across the night sky! Its banshee shriek paralyzes its victims, but Jackson knows its weakness is light!”

He jumps at the drapes, flinging them open, his candle illuminating the stone and glass behind.

_Victory?_

The sound is a distant echo in the hall. He startles and slides behind the curtain, snuffing his candle. No one had been around, the last he’d checked. After a short battle with himself, he pushes the fabric aside and steps into the dim light of the corridor. Not a soul greets him.

“Man,” he breathes with a smile, “this place just keeps ‘em coming.”

He relights the candle and makes his way to the parlor. Pitch has thought to light it properly, and candelabras Jack hadn’t even noticed shimmer in the corners.

“You’re late,” he starts, holding out a glass. Jack judges it from afar and accepts it with hesitation.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any ghosts in this place, wouldja?” he jokes as he sniffs the liquid: hot brandy. It’s snowing outside, again, and he downs it gratefully. “Not that I’m superstitious, or anything.”

Pitch’s silence is a sound by itself. The fire crackles in return, and he glides over the floor, shadow mismatched in the flicker. Jack pretends to not notice.

“If there were, I’m sure I would have run into them by now. I mean, a week and no appearances. Those’re some shy specters you’ve got, Black.”

At that, Pitch spares him a glance. His face is always cast with some sort of smirk, so Jack can’t tell if this is natural or responsive.

“I have had guests complain, before. But it’s never anything interesting.”

Jack gulps, and he’s not sure why. “Ah. Yeah. We wouldn’t want too many tourists scrambling in here. Might wreck the whole ‘eerie Transylvanian count’ thing you have going on.”

Is the brandy making him talk? He can’t tell, but he’s slammed the glass in two swigs, regardless of his innate distrustfulness of Pitch’s “favors.” The last had landed him with a rather awkward explanation of his virility. Not that he owes Pitch the four seconds it would take to apologize for it. Or any mention of it at all.

“It’s rather late, already. You must be starving.”

 _You look like you’re starving_ , Jack thinks. Truly, every other time he and Pitch meet, the creep ignites another scandal with that glare. Beyond sizing up Jack frequently and, he’s convinced, _critically,_ the count emits an air of hunger in most of their interactions. His usual flippancy with Jack is fortified by his ineptitude for polite conversation. If it’s not something cutting, it’s an intensely disconcerting, and typically sexual, comment. His starvation for company might be the root, and Jack’s known farmers who suffer in kind.

 _I’m no sheep_ ,

“I never suggested you were. You’re much more stubborn; a goat, perhaps.”

Had he said that aloud? Jack isn’t usually a lightweight. He’s damn near doused himself in grain alcohol without much of a hangover. The glass is out of his hand and they’re standing in the dining room. Had they been that close? Pitch had opted out of a candle, much to his disappointment. He can’t orient himself in this place without a bit of light. If this backward country could afford gas lighting, like the sanitarium, he might be in better straits.

Pitch pulls out a chair next to the head of the table, and sweeps his hand over it. Jack sits obediently, then frowns. He’s never done anything obediently. But here he is at the table, and Pitch is sitting at the head, to his left. He’s at the right hand. He doesn’t feel good about it. The room is dim and his chair squeaks as he slides back out if it.

“Jack,”

“That’s a… unique painting.”

He stops, hand balancing him against the head rush as he stumbles around the back of the chair. A gargantuan mural, swallowing the ceiling above them, depicts what must be Hell.

“I’m astounded. I was of the understanding that Americans could hold their liquor.”

A hand curls around his shoulder. Black smudges, demons, push men with gold leaf armor off of cliffs, into burning towns. Are Pitch’s hands really so slender? One terror rips the limbs from a soldier, black spines pushing in to devour his innards. The fingers wrap nearly to his chest. Tiny flames dotting the countryside swell into billowing infernos, whipping the clouds into red fire. He’s pushed into a chair. He realizes the flames are villagers.

A plate is set before him, but the servants are gone before he can look.

“Jack, you really should eat something.”

He’s not sure of the meat, maybe a rabbit stew, and he thinks that’s a very country sort of thing to give a guest. A small serving of polenta is in a bowl nearby, and he reaches for it covetously. Pitch eyes him with a smile,

“Polenta is comfort food, in this region. Do forgive the simplicity, but I thought you might like to see what the villagers are eating, before you begin diagnosing them.”

Jack tears off a hunk of rustic bread and chomps down. Had he eaten, this morning? He can’t remember. He’s on his second helping of bread, already. When had he taken the first? Pitch won’t stop talking. Is he eating?

“Why aren’t you eating?” the question had been clear in his head, but as he murmurs the words, they slip out foreign and unwieldy. Perhaps he hadn’t been heard.

“I’ve been sick, lately. I was rather hoping I might be your first patient.”

He’s only taking wine. Jack pushes the plate of bread his way, indicating as best he can with only hand gestures that he should eat to stay strong. His voice is inaccessible. Pitch only smiles and turns him down,

“I ate earlier. It upset my stomach.”

Jack surveys him incredulously. If there were a thing on Earth to shake this man, he hadn’t found it, yet. But, maintaining his station as best he can, he points to the wine, only his limbs feel lethargic, so he executes a lazy bat in the direction of the goblet, and frowns.

“I drink it to keep calm, through the night. Guests aren’t the only ones with the occasional nightmare.”

Jack is reminded of a wolf with a hare in its mouth. Pitch smiles so devilishly, he wants to smack it off of him. Jack does not, and has never in his life, played prey for another human being, and he’s not about to let some backwoods count toss him around for his clumsy drunkenness. And he has this very intelligent monologue thought out to cut into Pitch like the self-important bastard he is, but all he manages is an embarrassingly weak hum before his vision starts funning with him, and the shadows on the wall skitter too close for comfort.

“Are you feeling alright?”

Compromised as Jack is, that is not the voice of a concerned citizen. It’s content, collected. Expectant.

As he surges out the chair, he makes an immediate turn for the floor. But he doesn’t hit it. Something soft envelopes him, and then Pitch is standing him up. When he can’t handle that, he’s lifted, and then they’re in a dark room, and Jack can’t think very clearly at all, but it’s certainly a bedroom, and they made it there in record time.

_You should sleep this off,_

Is he hearing things? Everything is warm. His body temperature is flaring and he’s being pressed into a bed. The warmth stretches over his chest and his head is turned, making the whole world shift for a second. He’s so heavy. He’s not normally this heavy. Should one apologize for a change in density?

Something hurts.

He bites out a raspy moan and clutches at the warmth. Hands? Hands are soothing him. They rub his face, his chest, his throat.

_Mm…_

The warmth is nice, but there’s a piercing heat too close. He wriggles to escape it, but it only clamps down around him. There’s more of it, surrounding him. He tries to arch his head away from it, but his neck is numbed by the heat.

And, quite suddenly, he grows very, very cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this qualify as a sex scene? If you're into that sort of thing, I suppose. This is supposed to be a Dracula abortion, not Fifty Shades of Suburban Housewife. I slept too much. How are you feeling?


	5. Tear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am trying to remember the last time I wrote a loving, fully consensual, Hollywood sex scene.
> 
> T'ain't comin' to me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have been warned.

He remembers resting near a pond, in a foreign wood. He was looking for the stream to gather water, but sticks and decaying plants had clogged the water on all sides, and he only had a few minutes of peace. So he sat by the pond, watching birds return to the water and dart to pick off the gangly skates teetering along the surface. It was quiet; only nature surrounding him, and his horse was lapping quietly.

There was a war, but it was elsewhere. In this serenity, the trees walled off every death and nuisance and held him safe in the branches. There was so much at stake, outside; everything he needed to protect, and his duty to save them from that knowledge. He couldn’t allow them to fully understand the opposition, or what it was planning for them. He could not let on how his determination might not be enough. But here, behind the verdant arbors, leaning back into soft, dewy grass, he could feel such harmony: such calm about the horrors beyond the green.

He heard the body approaching, and the hand on his shoulder bolstered his quiet bliss. Pale and, for all its strength, delicate; something that could empower and soften. He wakes while the dream continues, watching it blur as his room comes into view.

Pitch is lighting the lamp by his bed, staring at him with a calculating frown,

“I was wondering what it would take to get you up.”

Jack is in no mood to banter.

“Thanks for the wakeup call. I’ll be down in a bit.”

He edges off the opposite side of the bed, wearing only a chemise. His head is throbbing from the brandy, and he can’t recall the previous evening. Asleep for almost a full day. He feels weak and useless. His neck aches from the angle he’d slept in, and his fingers struggle to clench as hard as they should.

The black robe from earlier is wrinkled in a pile by the changing screen. He kicks at it before passing around. Pitch doesn’t leave; his silhouette flickers in front of the lamp, just visible through the hinge of the wood.

“I was thinking of taking a walk, before it snows. Would you like to join me?”

He’s black from Jack’s perspective, no light from the flame reaching the shadows on his face. He shrugs on a vest and runs a hand through his hair, looking for his trousers,

“That sounds great, but I’m still pretty tired.”

He slips on the black pair that Pitch had brought him. The man pauses, then his figure turns, a sinister mass floating toward the window,

“You were more energetic, the first few days,”

“Yeah, well, being cooped up with nothing to do and no toys could drive anyone crazy.”

He returns from behind the screen, bunching up his sleeves with the small blue ties. Pitch is watching him, but that’s not unusual. He’s still prickly from this afternoon and if the man is expecting pleasantries, he’s in for a nasty surprise.

“Your supplies are in town, now. You can ride in as soon as morning, if you like.”

That’s welcome news. He brightens, unable to stop the smile overtaking his face.

“That’s good to hear, I guess,”

“Have you been having more nightmares?” Pitch’s question comes suddenly. Jack’s nascent contentment withers at the thought of the vivid dreams, but more about telling Pitch. The man is uncommonly stern as he surveys Jack, exuding a cautious curiosity that’s too genuine for his character. Jack wants this conversation to end.

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Are you projecting?”

“What’s ordinary?”

_You_ would _be the one to ask that._

“I dunno. Falling dreams, dying, losing someone, maybe. Is this going anywhere?”

Pitch’s gaze is so intense, if Jack were a lesser man, he’d start cowering. The lamp flickers at his bedside and the room seems warmer for its glow. The man’s skin looks deathly grey in this light, black robe drawing up in imperceptible lines as he crosses his arms. Pitch is unsatisfied by his answer.

“People who stay here tend to have trouble sleeping,”

“Could have fooled me.” Jack isn’t interested in heavy conversation. He flops back on the bed, leaving his vest hanging open and drawing his legs up in a cross. Pitch watches, perturbed.

“I don’t have guests because this place has an uncommon reputation. Those who sleep here opt to never return. You don’t seem to be having much trouble at all.”

Jack yawns and stretches, catlike. The shirt wasn’t tied properly and slides loosely down his arms, drowning him in soft white fabric. It muffles his curse and he tugs the knots with his teeth to retie them. He brushes his hair out of his eyes and realizes Pitch is probably waiting for some sort of confirmation.

“I mean, I haven’t been having the best dreams, but I always wake up.” He distracts himself with the thread, a strange, disconnected feeling growing inside of him. When he closes his eyes, he loses track of his limbs in the void. He adds softly, reassuring himself, “They’re just dreams, after all. Nothing too scary about that.”

When he looks up, Pitch is annoyed, challenged. He schools his features with a hard expression and leans into the stone behind him, regarding Jack with chilling displeasure. He’s about to bite out something bitter and oh-so clever, but Jack cuts him off expertly,

“I don’t like ‘em, necessarily, but they say dreams are really just memories, and us trying to understand life. So even if I have a nightmare, at least I’m getting something out of it. And it’s not like it’s going to last. Dreams end pretty quickly, anyway.”

Pitch is tapping his finger on his arm, but he’s not angry. He’s buzzing with energy, re-crossing his legs and shifting beneath that ridiculous robe. He’s glaring holes into the sheets around Jack, looking up every few seconds as if a fresher view will clarify something, but he ends up clucking out an irritated _tsk_ and heading for the door. He stops, halfway, almost pacing.

“What memories are you reliving, then?” he asks, the dim light sputtering and leaving his eyes blinking grey and gold. Jack thinks this is too personal for their contentious relationship, but he has missed company. He scratches his cheek, brushing it off with his sleeve and wondering.

“I don’t remember most of them, so they can’t be too bad. What’s with all the questions?”

Pitch shoots him another glare before straightening, then walking to the chair.

“You’ve been so affected by your dreams, you’ve hurt and pleasured yourself in the same week,” Jack chokes and wants to shout at him, but Pitch is on a roll, “Everyone here has nightmares and everyone leaves,”

“I’m under contract, and this conversation is over.”

“You’ve been here for a full week, Jack.”

Jack is more than irritated, now. He slips off the bed and rolls a tight shoulder, aiming for the window to clear his head with a breeze. Pitch interrupts his path with a dangerous stare, sliding over the stone with inhuman grace.

“You’re just as stubborn as the day you arrived.” His robe melds with shadows cast by the lamp and the ends waver. His skin looks grey and his shadow _lurches_ onto the wall, twisted and black. Jack backs up, nearing the lamp as the villagers’ wariness clicks in his head. He steels himself and frowns, riding the disbelief for as long as it can hold out,

“Stop with the parlor tricks, Pitch, or I’ll quit.”

“You’re here for the next six months, Jack. You signed a _contract_.”

Jack bristles, rage flooding where fear had started to enter his mind, “I didn’t sign up for _this_!” A shadow licks at his arm and dread fills him like cracks in ice. He jerks back, hitting the lamp and smacking it to the floor. He knocks against the wall, jumping out of the path the oil would take, but the glass never strikes stone. Instead, it falls into the darkness on the floor and disappears. The moonlight is disorienting. As Pitch steps closer and closer to him, the black of the shadows follows. Jack readies for a fight he can’t win. The window is open, but the drop could kill him. As long as there’s a snow bank deep enough, he can make it. He can make it.

As he edges closer to it, mustering the nastiest glare to throw at Pitch, shadows wash over the glass. The last of the light in the room narrows to scant blue streaks, catching Jack’s eyes and glinting off in sparks. He keeps backing up, breaths coming faster as he struggles to keep calm and the corner comes nearer.

“What do you want?” He finally asks, holding his breathing as steady as possible. The darkness continues to writhe.

He’s hardly aware of the flicker in Pitch’s face, the loneliness that tugs at his eyes while the shadows lunge forward, and the room distorts into smoke.

-

He’s yanking off his chain mail. Pitch darted up the stairs the second he’d undone the armor. Struggling with the weight as he stumbles up the tower, he nearly rips his shirt, once it’s freed. Pitch’s tunic, boots, belt, his trousers greet him around each successive turn. He fumbles with his own shoes as he finally climbs the last step into the candle-lit room. Pitch slams him against the door, lips on his neck, ear, pulling shocked gasps with needy bites. Jack grips his waist and pushes him against the wall of the entryway, kissing him hard and trying not to laugh. Pitch grinds the effort from him, wearing down his conscious as desperate hands cling at his back.

“I take it… we’re not waiting… any longer?”

Pitch snarls and punishes him with a bite, seeking his lips once more. Jack laughs and obliges.

He moans and pushes up into Pitch’s hands as they undo the tie to his trousers, searching for the friction of fingers, a belly, a hip, anything.

“ **Bed** ,” Pitch growls, eyes black with lust. Jack throws him a little too easily, winding his leg around Pitch’s knee and forcing him down. His back hits the blankets and he clutches Jack’s sides, pulling him close, leg rising wantonly for him to settle between his hips.

“It’s been too long,” Jack murmurs as he bruises Pitch’s neck with love bites. Pitch hisses and draws him close, arching into his crotch and rubbing jerkily. Jack gulps,

“C… can, I mean, it’s okay?”

Pitch can’t help the bark of laughter that leaves him, and he crawls up the bed, leaving himself open to Jack’s advancement.

“I’m not going to dignify that.”

Jack’s posture bends from the force of his desire. Pitch is spread wide as he creeps over him, hands dragging up his thighs.

“I’m pretty sure that counts as dignifying.”

“You wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.”

Jack nips his ear and he sighs, running his nails down the other man’s back,

“Oil?”

“Yeah,” he says shakily, “on the table.”

Jack leaves him and the cool sweat departs. The air is too hot from the candles, and Jack is taking too long. He grants himself some darkness, pulling his arm across his eyes. It’s been far too long. When he looks up, the bed creaks under Jack’s weight. The phial is metallic and cold. Jack doesn’t bother warming the oil as he pours it between Pitch’s legs.

“Ah! Brat,” Pitch is smiling. Jack is laughing at him. Their desperate happiness is too consuming. His fingers spread the tincture and he leans in to lap at Pitch’s neck, swallowing the shiver he receives in reward. Pitch’s head tilts back at the wet sound between his legs. His mouth grows slack as Jack opens him up. He raises a hand to rest on the other’s arm, guiding him slowly, steadily. His breaths are studded with miniscule gasps.

“Ah,” he bucks, “There. Yes,” he sighs as Jack’s fingers scissor, hips grinding shamelessly against his leg. Jack is never hot, but now he’s positively _stifling_.

“How much longer?” He gasps out. He wants to touch himself so badly, Pitch almost takes pity on him.

“Just… wait,”

Jack’s movements are shaky, too excited. It’s been weeks since their last night together. Pitch would love to do this until dawn, but remains mindful of the throbbing ache inside of him. If Jack could only be patient, this would go more smoothly.

“Now?” he asks. Pitch laughs and relinquishes his grip on Jack’s arm. The boy slides instantly between his legs, lifting one as he yanks Pitch’s hips into his lap. He whispers into his ear,

“It’s been too long,”

Pitch licks his lips,

“Just get on with it.”

“Yeah,” Jack’s voice breaks and he takes himself in hand, pushing too hard at Pitch’s entrance.

“Ah, stop,” Pitch whines. The head slides in. Barely two minutes of prep after weeks of disuse, and it feels like it’s pecking at his organs. He holds Jack’s shoulders too tightly and forces his legs into deadweight, attempting to relax as fast as possible. Feeling him loosen, Jack pushes again,

“ _Ow!_ I said,”

“I know. Sorry.”

Pitch would like to point out that he is _very much **not** _ sorry, but Jack wouldn’t listen, anyway. In an effort to speed up the process, Jack wraps his hand around Pitch’s shaft, pumping slowly, fist nearly too tight, fingers stagnating and gripping him so that he pushes up with an angry mewl.

“That,” Jack breathes, “is what you feel like.”

“Oh, what a wonderful thought.”

But Jack is pressing forward again, fist moving at an agonizing rate as Pitch humps into it, focusing on that over the pain. He finally relents,

“Fine! You’ve made your point.”

He can feel Jack’s smile on his neck. His legs quiver from it.

The thrusts are gentle; shallow. Jack groans and Pitch grits his teeth, angling his hips against the pain to find that magic spot.

“ _Oh,_ ” He sighs, spine curling, hands clawing at Jack to bring him closer. After half a month, he’s too tight to begin with. Jack trembles as he restrains himself, guiding his hips into that angle, kissing Pitch’s thigh and leaving it angry and red with his teeth. Pitch surrenders once he has Jack in his arms, loosening and allowing him deeper. Jack thrusts harder, bending into his hips with a ragged moan. He bows Pitch until he can reach his neck, grabbing at his hair and yanking him into a bruising kiss.

“You,” he breathes, “are the most **amazing** thing,”

Pitch chokes on a laughing moan, hands roaming Jack’s back madly and dragging talons across his flesh,

“ _You’re not half-bad._ ”

Jack growls as a new wave strikes him. The rest of his blood shoots straight to his groin. He pulls back, snatching Pitch’s wrists into one crushing grip and holding them above his head. Pitch’s eyes spark and his mouth twitches. Jack ignores his erection and tugs a leg over his shoulder. He _pounds_ into Pitch with agonizing force, and the spark blazes as Pitch arches, mouth falling open.

“ _Oh. Ja… Yes, ye…_ ”

Jack snaps his hips, breathing stunted as he grinds the wrists in his hand against the bed, fingers white. Pitch’s voice is higher, halting. Eyes shut, mouth slack, he fills Jack with a symphony of pleasure. Gasping, head turning into the sheets, seeking cold as his heat radiates and warms the body breaching him. Jack finds a punishing rhythm and tunes in to the steady, ringing slap of his hips against Pitch’s.

“Yes! Faster…!”

Obliging, Jack pants, releasing tiny, broken moans as he speeds up. Pitch clamps down on him and he whines at the pressure. His hand searches for the other man’s sex and then pumps it wildly.

“ _Not yet…!_ ” But his breaths come too fast and then cease. With only the sound of their skin sliding, Jack becomes aware of the blood thrumming in his ears, of his own brutal gasping. Pitch’s cock pulses randomly as he comes, pushing frantically up into Jack’s grip. Jack redoubles his efforts and picks up a barreling pace, thrusting faster, shallow, and quaking as his orgasm begins. He slams in, each thrust shaking, weaker than the last, until he fills Pitch and Pitch grunts, voice still high and scratchy.

“You know,” he sighs, tilting to look down at Jack, slumped between his messy thighs, “I had this romantic idea that I was going to seduce you.”

“By throwing me against a door?” Jack wipes his forehead and watches Pitch hungrily as he withdraws, drinking in the flinch and hushed groan.

“I thought,” Pitch flexes his hands, waiting for the blood to return, “that I would speak all manner of filth. That I would spend hours pleasuring you.” Jack flops down next to him with an aggravating, incredulous look.

“Well, I mean, this is only round one. Unless you’re not up to it, old man.”

Pitch wants to hit him, but pulls him into an embrace, instead.

“Shall I have you panting and wanton, under me, then?”

Jack wrestles out of his grip, eyes twinkling,

“See, when you describe yourself all sexy like that, it almost makes me think you’re a narcissist.”

“Oh, _heavens_ , anything but that.” He sniffs. Jack laughs and climbs over him, head resting on his chest. Pitch adjusts his legs and winces at the slick feeling between them.

“Up,” he pushes Jack off, sliding off the bed. He stumbles as he stands, earning a chuckle from the bed. “Oh, shut up.”

“Need some help, there, _General?_ ”

Pitch controls his steps as best he can, but the come dribbling between his legs, and the pleasured, weak tremble between them invariably disservice him.

A loud _bang_ clears his thoughts instantly.

“Jack,”

Jack’s flown off the bed, searching for a weapon. The stairwell echoes with dozens of footsteps and shouts. Pitch grabs a candelabra and Jack, a chair. When the first armored body appears, Jack throws with all his might and it smashes against the man, knocking him back down the tower. Another climbs over him and the rest surge into the room. Pitch swings the cast iron at them, knocking one toward the wall and shouting at Jack to grab a dagger from his nightstand. His legs are too weak, but growing stronger. He dodges as many attacks as he can, but it’s a short fight. A shout from the corner and he’s too distracted to continue. He glances over to see Jack biting at his assailants’ arms as they capture him

“JACK!”

A heavy hand yanks the candelabra from him and others shove him back. He falls to the bed, scrambling to reach his table and fetch the dagger.

There’s a sword at Jack’s throat.

Too many hands are pulling at him, turning him, forcing his chin to turn toward the door. A tall man, dressed in black, enters. Pitch’s limbs are pulled to the corners of the bed, leaving him open to all eyes. The man smiles crookedly at the mess between his legs and he growls, fighting against the hold.

Jack glares murderously at the man. He doesn’t seem to notice. He stalks into the room and speaks in a language Jack’s never heard. It disturbs Pitch to hear it, though. He blanches as one of the brutes moves in, toward the bed. His knee glides in between Pitch’s and Jack screams, drawing all attention. The man in black smiles at his struggle, and turns again toward Pitch.

“General Pitchiner, your men are not very well-behaved.”

Pitch flinches, chin held to look straight at the man. Jack is beaten in his periphery.

“How about this: Jack,” Jack’s thunderous glower flicks to the man. “If you are obedient, and quiet, I will allow General Pitchiner to leave, alive. And Pitchiner,” his gaze is starved as it lingers over Pitch’s frightened angry expression, “if you take your eyes off of him, I will cut off something very precious.” His fingers trace up Pitch’s thigh, dragging through Jack’s semen. “You seem to enjoy it. Do protect it.”

To his credit, Jack is surprisingly calm, after that. He has to bite his lip bloody to keep silent. He locks eyes with Pitch, each trying to soothe the other with a calm look. At the side of the bed, Jack can see everything. The soldier from before resumes his attack, drawing over Pitch and freeing himself between his legs.

Pitch pulls like mad at the hands keeping him down, but he doesn’t break eye contact with Jack. When the head of the man’s cock presses heavily at his entrance, his mouth opens with a pained grunt, and his eyes widen in pain and terror.

But he won’t say a word. Not with Jack _right there_ and quite obviously holding his promise by a thread. Pitch can’t do anything to drive him unreasonable. He only breathes a little harder, more panicked.

The head breaches him and he groans, keeping a stranglehold on his anger so his limbs don’t tremble too much from the fear. The man in black seems less pleased than he’d been expecting. The soldier thrusts without breaking, so much force in his movements that Pitch begins sliding up the bed, gasping and crying out. Jack tenses every time he hears his voice.

His skills as a general cannot save him from this situation. Without weapons, without an escape, he is confined to Jack’s gaze, straining to subdue himself and keep the noises small. The soldier is not amused by his efforts. In retaliation, he pivots his hips, grazing Pitch’s spot and causing his eyes to flutter.

“ _Careful,_ now,” the man in the corner murmurs, hand supporting his chin as he absorbs Pitch’s torment.

“Ah,” an anguished moan leaves Pitch and Jack’s expression flickers with agony. His muscles are flexed, pouring all energy into staying still. Pitch wants to look away, wants to die, but it’s not his life in his hands.

He forgets himself.

All it takes is one brutal thrust, jamming him up toward the headboard, and his head jerks in pain. Horror bowls into him in that split second, and when he recapture Jack, the man is already being held in place.

“ **NO**!” Pitch screams, thrashing. Jack is stiff, muted, but keeps his chin high, gaze trained on the bed. The soldier atop Pitch shudders and Pitch squirms at the feel of another man twitching, pulsing his seed deep into him. Jack’s legs are spread and his testicles held apart from his body.

“Well, that didn’t take very long at all, now, did it? Almost disappointing, though I was getting bored.”

The man directs his company, and a thin wisp with grisly scars heats a knife in the fire.

The man steps up to the bedside and softly strokes the side of pitch’s face. Pitch hisses, voice shattered.

“Now, now, you must have foreseen this! You can’t be expected to shoulder this burden alone!” He smooths back Pitch’s hair, teeth jagged and yellow, “Lovers are meant to share their trouble, meant to support each other. I commend you for having the humility to do this. I’m sure he appreciates it, as well.”

The blade is removed from the coals, glowing red at the tip. The scarred soldier kneels between Jack’s legs, the point a hair from his flesh. Jack flinches from the heat.

“Yes, well. The show must go on.”

At that, the soldier rips the blade through the scrotum, cauterizing it instantly. Singed flesh fills the room until Pitch feels like he’s burning, and Jack’s hoarse screams echo in his ears. Another man mounts him to the sound of Jack’s sobbing. They never break eye contact. Jack’s tears make it difficult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All's fair in love and fanfic?


	6. Repression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack's a little banged up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time coming.

Veins of frost scale the looming windows, sunlight illuminating the fractals and casting playful rainbows on the stone floor. Jack doesn’t stir when he wakes, exhausted beyond all reason and throat parched. His muscles disobey him when he makes to stretch, loose around aching bones and twined too tightly in the sheets. Because of the sun at his window, he can guess that it’s at most midmorning, but all other thought escapes him. He feels stranded in his own head. A sidelong glance reveals the oil lamp at his bedside, standing pristinely and unmarked with any scuffs from the floor. Nor are there oil stains spotting the night stand, though he is sure when it tipped, the night before…

His mind comes to a foggy halt at the edge of an abyss. Each attempt to remember is stifled by ringing pain, tinnitus so loud, the peaceful room around him morphs into a torture chamber. Dragging his hands from under the sheets, he notices that again, they are covered in scratches. This time, the blood has only barely scabbed over, dried in pale streaks down his wrists like smudged lipstick; the work of an eager mouth.

Muting the worries clawing steadily harder at him, he manages the energy to rise to his elbows. He pulls his torso up onto the pile of pillows, spying a small note on the opposite side of the bed. His fingers are numb as he reaches for it, clumsy arms pale and weak as they fumble for the paper and nearly knock it away.

_Jack,_

The sweeping curlicues don’t complement Pitch’s character—Jack had been expecting stabbing spikes.

_I tried to wake you, this morning, but you wouldn’t have it._

_I’ve gone into town to procure your supplies, myself._

_The servants are out for the feast holiday—I’ll bring groceries, as well._

Feast holiday? Jack can’t remember any holiday at this time of year.

Reading is normally difficult for him, regardless of his Latin-based profession, but the script flows easily into his head, effortlessly, as though he had practiced the lines already for a play. He wonders at the difference between mind and body, at the difficulty of closing a fist compared to the smooth letters trailing delicately before his eyes. He searches for a post script but can’t find one. All that rests at the bottom are Pitch’s farewell and signature,

_Yours,_

_Pitch_

The ‘r’ is halting, as if the pen had stumbled and halted halfway through the word, though the ‘s’ finishes with an extravagant flourish, compensating for the tiny imperfection.

Jack is keen on detail, but perceptiveness is rare at this hour, and he barely knows what to do with himself. The sharp fractals, shadows of ice on the floor, occupy his troubled mind as he follows the tight loops expectantly, remembering childhood and watching the shadows of trees creep long in the afternoon sun. He’s about to die of ennui when something slams into the window, and he launches the note off the bed with his jump. Feathers flap at the iced glass in a wicked, desperate beat. Summoning enough effort to stand, he limps toward the window, forgetting his aches and the fire in his bones as he begs his numb fingers to help the poor creature.

The ice crackles as he pulls, but doesn’t budge. Agitated beyond reason, he drives his shoulder into the glass and shouts as it gives, arm tumbling onto the ledge and scraping fresh wounds into the museum on his skin. A hummingbird—or what looks like one—tumbles around his grasping hands, chirping madly as it tries to escape, pecking spots of blood onto his red fingers.

“ _Ouch, ow_ STOP IT! I’m only _trying to help_ OW!”

He clamps his hands resolutely around the tiny wings, confining the bird to his fist as it writhes and panics. Trapping a living creature doesn’t do his nerves well, but there’s nowhere to put it and from the way it scrabbled at his window, he’s fairly sure it’s injured. Clutching the shivering thing as adroitly as his muscles can offer, he closes the iron latch. The bird’s shoulders droop in finality and he releases a grimacing smile,

“Hey, hey, don’t be like that,”

Nothing in the room could suffice for a cage, but his main concern is the bird’s health. He sits it on the table by the chair, swooning as he reaches too far for bandages Pitch had given him.

_The blood you got on my sheets with that nightmare was unacceptable_.

With utmost care, he inspects a tiny wing, wincing as the little beast titters painfully, pecking madly again. He has some respect for it, for the fact that it refuses to submit to its fate. Admiration can breed strength, but he doesn’t like the implied futility; that he’s doing as he wills while the bird fights for freedom and space. It matches his own situation too well, but he tries not to linger.

“Let’s see what’s wrong, eh?”

Peeling back the tiny wing, a terrified shriek pierces his eardrums.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I just need to see,”

If a bird could weep, this one would break his heart. Wide, watery eyes plead uselessly with him, body flinching as he tries flexing the wing, noting the bird’s complaints. The eyes remind him of someone. He’s had to quash too many memories, this morning.

Fumbling for a makeshift splint, he grabs the matches, lining one up with the crooked wing and flashing the bird an apologetic smile as he folds it into place. Another shriek nearly breaks his resolve as he wraps the wound carefully, sparing as much of his touch as he can against the crooked feathers. The creature seems to sniffle as he finally lets it be, murmuring to himself about finding it something for a nest. It occurs to him how bare his room is, not only of his own belongings, but any. The space feels barely used; his life Spartan, as usual. He wanders around the tables, searching for spare fabric to pool around her, but what isn’t being laundered is too soiled for his little patient. Compromising with a tired frown, he lifts the hem of his chemise over his head, struggling as it captures his chin. The bird titters at him, but stops before he can see its expression. It didn’t sound threatened. Rather, it seemed to be laughing at him.

A calm smile spreads over his face, allowing him to enjoy the cool air of his apartment. He bundles the chemise and picks the bird up, marveling at how it permits him. Sliding the warm fabric under it, he giggles as it makes a show of tufting up its feathers, chirping conversationally at him as it settles in.

“You’re a character, ain’tcha? Must be a little hungry after all this.”

It chirps again, head tilting inquisitively. It seems confused by its inability to communicate with him. Its insistence is endearing. The blue crown of feathers on its head bristles as it twitches, sharp black beak mouthing off as he lifts the makeshift nest.

“Let’s get some breakfast. How about eggs?”

He laughs as it glances back at him, eyes wide. Memories trickle in through his laughter, however hard he tries to stop them; before he can help it, he’s thinking of it as “her.” The girlishness and molten, fearful eyes sting a wound he’d long since forced close. His hands wind into the fabric of his chemise, smile growing tighter as he banishes the thoughts, thinking only of what to feed her and if there’s any food, in the first place. Pitch said he had left to retrieve groceries, as well, but there must be something worth eating in the pantry.

The freezing atmosphere in the halls is liberating. Open windows have blown the curtains astride the long glass panels, bathing the hall a liquid blue. Shirtless as he is, goosebumps tickle his flesh and he hunches over the tiny bundle in his arms, guarding her as best he can. The blue plays tricks with his eyes, ancient burgundy carpet shimmering and switching colors. His head aches as grimy sconces on the wall shine gold in the periphery, tarnishing again as he glances at them. Without thinking, he navigates the route to the kitchen stairs, though he’s sure he’s only ever passed them before. He can’t remember why he’d know the path, but distracts himself by cooing over the shrill little bird in his hands.

“You sure cry a lot,” he mutters with a smile, welcoming the adorable distraction. “You’re just a baby, I bet.”

The high tweet in response sounds indignant and he can’t help but laugh, jostling her bundled home as he trudges down the stairs. The thick wool of his underwear chafes the sensitive skin on his thighs, pulling on scabs that can’t exist. He feels little more than a walking corpse, flesh ready to drop at each careless step.

What could have happened last night?

What isn’t he catching?

The hall between the kitchen and dining room is warm with sunlight, and he spies the stone fireplace with its heavy black cauldron through a large doorway. Immense butcher blocks and towering stone shelves greet him. This place is suited to an army, not just a country count. Giant pots hang soundlessly above his head but he can imagine them banging around, the room bustling with too many bodies and stifling heat. His fingers itch, stealing imaginary scraps of food, feet dancing nimbly between shouting voices. Much to the bird’s protests, he lays her on one of the massive wooden counters as he begins inspecting the kitchen. A tiny, ancient door is jammed shut between the shelves. No mechanism clinks when he shoves at it, the casing impenetrable with his meager strength. Dull flatware lines the shelves beside hulking iron pans and cookware. In the corner sits an unusually ornamented cabinet, but he finds only fine china among the nooks inside. The heavy drawers are locked.

Frustration mounting, he reminds himself to be tender when handling the bird, picking her up in shaking fingers as the morning’s hunger begins to affect him.

“If the servants are gone, he’s probably got the keys, right?” he mutters to her, a half-smirk twisting his face as she chirps and nestles into his chilled grasp.

He glances out into the hallway before walking, as though he’d snatched sweets before dinner or sabotaged a dish. Even when he’d done that at the sanitarium, no one had minded; noticed him. The performance stopped quickly when he realized he could simply walk in and out with whatever he wished. There was no need to hide what couldn’t be seen.

He glides past the dining room, remembering only an argument and the… captivating mural on the ceiling. The study by the main stair is next, and the buffet across from the fire uncommonly barren. Pitch kept order forms there, where Jack would jot down anything he could recall needing. It would make sense that they would be gone with him on the trip. Jack wonders if he’ll really get all he asked for, although he wouldn’t be surprised if Pitch slipped in something extra. He refuses to touch alcohol again in the man’s presence.

Nothing can be found in the parlor. The bird grows increasingly restless as he grumbles through the search, neck twitching with each powerful growl of his stomach. He didn’t know where else Pitch would keep the keys; they didn’t seem like something one should hide. Pacing outside the room and into the foyer, his feet resolve to walk without him, head caught in a flurry of hunger and irritation. The arches lining the corridor lead to locked doors, hallways dusted maybe once a decade. The curtains here are not only closed, but tied, the air more chilled than the second floor of the castle. Jack boldly feels his way along, entering through the first door that gives in to his relentless hunt.

Matches would have done him well. Why are there never any matches, in this place?

The room has scant beams of light bleeding under the bottoms of curtains. The stone path behind the glass must be part of the courtyard, his room above and to the right. The brawny legs of a vast desk are just visible in the gloom, packed bookshelves hugging the walls with claustrophobic precision. He doesn’t bother with them, making a beeline for the desk.

Unable to see, he yanks the curtains open and light tumbles in, dust flying off the fabric as if it hadn’t been pulled back in a century. Choking through the cloud and shielding the bird from the worst of it, he begins rifling through as many drawers as are open, finding more papers and books and things he couldn’t care less about, as well as odd things: bits of grass and fur, pressed flowers dripping from yellow pages whenever he moves something. Phials of sand and earth with labels in Cyrillic. The whole collection is too eclectic for him to process, and he begins fuming in his raid for the keys, being less careful than he should be with another’s belongings.

The drawer to the left offers some hope at last, holding mostly small boxes with rusted keyholes. A few of them are unlocked, and he reels at what he finds, momentarily forgetting his hunger.

Jewelry. Gold, silver, copper bands, ruby chandeliers, sapphire earrings. A pearl necklace, each sphere the size of his teeth and going on for miles of wraps. Every box reveals new and stranger treasures: brooches with gears and sockets for wind-up keys, coins with Roman cameos and Gallic runes. The wealth of that drawer could probably employ a full-time staff and buy new furniture, a _new castle_ in this backwater territory. It might even be able to buy the sanitarium, and the doctors within!

He pulls back the velvet chair and plops down clumsily, too absorbed with the strange riches. Why keep them in a drawer? Why lock up _the kitchen_ and not an entire bank’s worth of gold?

The drawer is too deep to search without removing boxes, but adventurous as always, Jack goes down as far as he can. The best stuff always sinks to the bottom of a stew. He shouts, startling the little bird as his scabbed wrist catches on one of the tarnished locks, the metal folding away from a worn velvet cover. He grabs the box and filters it out for later, diving down again. The drawer takes up most of the left side of the desk, with probably over a hundred boxes. As far back as he can reach, a new texture greets him. Rather than leather or fabric, this box feels plainer; wooden, and incredibly smooth at his touch. With some effort, he jiggles it between the myriad cases. It’s smaller than most of them, more suited to a single piece than anything else.

He’s excited beyond all reason, stomach roiling with adrenaline rather than his forgotten hunger. He peeks up at the bird, which leans curiously over his hands and titters as if to ask

_Why is this important? Why haven’t we eaten yet, you twit?_

Jack smiles mischievously, wondering if he should hide the case, just to see how Pitch would react. Nothing so plain would catch his attention as much as the decadent finery he’s spread over the desk. Should it go “missing,” he wonders how long it would take for the creep to notice. Jack could probably walk out with it, if he wanted to.

His excitement makes him nervous, cherishing the moment as the bird drags herself toward the box, pushing at it and trying to get his attention.

_Food, human! Now!_

“Okay, alright. Just this one and I’ll get you somethin’ to eat, okay? Just this one,”

His fingers are clammy as they inspect the case. It could be older than the castle; the surface is worn smooth and almost oiled, no latch visible. A faded motif, nearly erased by time and use, decorates the lid, though he can barely make it out, even in the light. It might be a family insignia, letters in Cyrillic lining the sides. He doesn’t bother with it. The bird taps his hand, tweeting again, hurrying him up.

“Okay,” he repeats with a happy breath, not sure why he’s stalling. Nothing else to do, really.

The invisible latch pops open easily, maybe broken, but all that greets him is an empty slot. He inspects the leather within, rough and old, wondering if it had fallen to the side. Frowning at the possible waste of his time, he tries to dislodge the leather cover, see if something more valuable lay within. Maybe some older version of the Holy Grail, though his hopes are marching steadily off a cliff, one by one. It disconnects easily from the sides, shape maintained after years of confinement. And beneath is…

Grass?

Or maybe not. He touches it, more confused than he’s been in weeks. The feel is coarser; painful.

A simple scrap of rope.

He stares at the box for a second, waiting for something to jump out at him, or a hidden key to turn at his viewing. But nothing happens. It’s only rope.

His fingers continue stroking it, as if it will reveal some great secret to him. It does look very old. Maybe a historical artifact? Perhaps it helped pull blocks up the pyramids. He’s losing interest fast. The bird pecks his hand and he jerks, fingers sliding too quickly along the frayed surface. The burn makes him catch himself, dropping it entirely as he inspects the reddened flesh. A new scratch along the length of his finger, tiny bruises waiting to form. It’s hardly distinguishable from the others on his hands.

The box is shut immediately and he shoves it deep in the drawer, piling in treasure after treasure.

Rope burns? Cuts from frayed knots? What the hell is going on in this nightmare?

Not wanting to think about it only forces him further into the topic. As if to mock his newfound distrust, the next drawer he tries innocently reveals the fabled ring of keys; pristine, top of the pile. Practically waiting for him. He grabs them and tries to clear his head with thoughts of food, snatching the bird into his injured hand and wrapping his finger in the soft cotton.

The keys jingle as he tries them at the drawers of the kitchen cabinet, hunger renewed as they open.

Knives. Just cutlery. No food in sight.

He shouts and kicks at the wooden monstrosity, yelling in pain as his toe nearly cracks at the force of his anger. Tears rise up before he can stop them, frustration released as he continues to abuse the cabinet. Why the hell did North send him here? No people, no food, no medicine or patients. The bird quails at his fury and burrows, unseen, behind the bloodstained fabric. Within a minute or so, Jack’s rage is spent, new bruises and cuts donning his aching legs as he leans heavily on the counter, head in his hands. If he had a mean bone in his body, he’d have imagined that to be Pitch, he was beating, but all he could see was himself. He doesn’t want to be here; he’s of no use to anyone. Was North just trying to shove that in his face? That even with this chance to help, he’s still this much of an outcast? He stays bent over the counter in silence, containing himself as best he can and cooling down.

The front door creaks open, a box is set with a clack on the stone floor.

He jumps and his first instinct is to run out, but he knows it’s only Pitch. It might be better to just sneak back to his room, though he’s not sure how to explain the fresh spots of blood on the ground. Apologizing to the bird, he uses the chemise to sop up stray droplet, running it briefly over the scratches on his feet. His hiss seems to invite company, and Pitch walks in to find him crouching on the floor.

“Jack?” More worried than confused. He swoops in to inspect the many little gashes. Jack tries unsuccessfully to ward him off.

There’s no smugness.

_Kicking furniture again? I’ll have to get you a sparring partner. One can’t keep losing to the dresser and maintain any pride._

Jack mopes at Pitch's distressed frown, not liking such a domestic expression on the face of the devil. The man is subdued, reverent of the wounds on his hands and stroking them delicately. Shivers creep up Jack's spine and golden eyes flick to him, all too serious for comfort. Using his half-nudity as an excuse, he rips his hands away and attempts some modesty, crossing his arms and sidling by his concerned benefactor.

"I'm gonna get dressed," he nearly hisses, only now realizing the cold of the place. Perhaps PItch brings it with him. He collects the bird and exits the kitchen, pretending he didn't see the man lift a bloodstained finger to his thin, grey lips.


End file.
